CBE system struggles as teacher woes, resource gaps persist

Claudia Lagat, assistant program officer at Usawa Agenda [Spice FM]

The shift to the Competency-Based Education (CBE) system is facing major challenges as poor assessment results and teacher complaints expose deep flaws in its rollout.

Education experts warn that without urgent retraining of teachers, better resources and political support, the reform risks collapsing.

Claudia Lagat, assistant program officer at Usawa Agenda, said the problem lies not in CBE itself but in how it has been implemented.

“It’s an issue of proper utilisation, proper planning, political goodwill and ownership at every stage, building a house and realising something went wrong, do you continue building, or do you stop and fix it?” she said on Wednesday, Janaury 14, during an in interview on Spice FM.

Lagat highlighted teacher welfare as a key weakness, noting that thousands of educators work as interns earning as little as Sh17,000 a month, while Early Childhood Development teachers earn between Sh7,500 and Sh9,750.

Many primary school teachers go a decade without promotion.

“How can a serious teacher make a budget of Sh17,000 for a whole month and expect them to perform and love the job. When an educator is frustrated, the expected outcome will not be realised. Currently no student is aspiring to take teaching as a profession,” she said.

Resource shortages also undermine CBE, which requires project-based learning, continuous assessment and digital skills. Lagat said only three in 10 public schools have computer labs.

 “You’re essentially going to get 30 per cent output,” she explained.

Large class sizes further limit CBE’s effectiveness. Nationally, the teacher-to-learner ratio is 1:57, rising to 1:90 in some regions, making personalised learning nearly impossible.

Despite the obstacles, Lagat said CBE offers holistic development, practical skills and values-based learning aligned with Vision 2030. “With 8-4-4, there was memorisation. With CBE, there is application,” she noted.

Experts say Kenya remains far from realising CBE’s goals and called for a radical change in implementation to prevent the system from failing.